Calidore Quartet
Bridget Kibbey, harp

The Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of a vast chamber music repertory, from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like György Kurtág, Jörg Widmann, and Caroline Shaw. For more than a decade, the Calidore has enjoyed performances and residencies in the world’s major venues and festivals, released multiple critically acclaimed recordings, and won numerous awards. The Los Angeles Times described the musicians as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,” approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching.” The New York Times noted the Quartet’s “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct,” and the Washington Post wrote that “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one”.

The New York City based Calidore String Quartet has appeared in venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brussels’ BOZAR, Cologne Philharmonie, Seoul’s Kumho Arts Hall, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Music@Menlo, Rheingau, East Neuk, and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Always seeking new commissioning opportunities, the Quartet has given world premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Anna Clyne, Han Lash, Huw Watkins and Mark-Anthony Turnage and collaborated with artists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, Emerson String Quartet, Jeffrey Kahane, David Shifrin, Inon Barnatan, Lawrence Power, Sharon Isbin, David Finckel and Wu Han.

Highlights of the 23-24 season include return appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and People’s Symphony in New York as well as concerts in Seattle, Palm Beach, Ottawa, Toronto, Kalamazoo and a European tour of United Kingdom, Estonia and Germany. The Calidore team up with pianist and composer Gabriela Montero for a world premiere of her new piano quintet at the Gilmore Piano Festival (MI) and also enjoy collaborations with the violist Matthew Lipman and harpist Bridget Kibbey, with whom they will premiere a new work by Sebastian Currier. Last season, the Calidore joined the Emerson String Quartet on their farewell tour in the Mendelssohn Octet and collaborated with clarinetist Anthony McGill and bassist Xavier Foley. The Quartet members also performed at Carnegie Hall alongside Anne-Sophie Mutter in a memorial concert honoring André Previn, featuring his compositions.

Harpist Bridget Kibbey is in demand for her virtuosic and soulful performances that transcend her instrument. At ease crossing classical, global, and jazz genres, Kibbey dives deep into historic narratives —from the baroque, to the French Belle Époque to Persian Modes, to Nuevo Latino traditions and beyond – while resonating within the vanguard of the new.

Through it all, Kibbey is illuminating the powerful expressive range of the concert harp to new audiences worldwide! Her chameleon tendencies at the harp — and love for producing her own touring projects — find her performing with a growing rolodex of curation-meets-performance appearances.

Announcing Kibbey’s newest solo recording, releasing October 13th with Pentatone Records, Crossing the Ocean. Kibbey asked six composers from six countries to write for the harp, based on the music they grew up hearing. The result? A set of cultural snapshots that delve into origin stories and preserving the past while moving forward into a new life in the United States. Soprano Dawn Upshaw is a special guest.

Kibbey recently made her solo NPR Tiny Desk Debut, is a winner of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Salon de Virtuosi SONY Recording Grant, the only harpist to win a place in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program, Premiere Prix at the Journées de les Harpes Competition in Arles, France, among others. She has recorded with a rolodex of cross-genre musicians, from luminaries Placido Domingo, Dawn Upshaw, Kathleen Battle and Gustavo Santaollalo for SONY Records and Deutsche Grammophon; and, her own solo debut album, Love is Come Again, was named one of the Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York.  Ms. Kibbey's solo performances have been broadcast on NPR's Performance Today, New York's WQXR, WNYC's Soundcheck, WETA’s Front Row Washington, WRTI’s Crossover, and on television in A&E's Breakfast with the Arts.

This season’s highlights include appearances as soloist at Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Dumbarton Oaks, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Festival Napa Valley, the VIVO Festival, Saratoga PAC, Alice Tully Hall with Artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as appearing as concerto soloist for 40,000 attendees at “Madison’s Concerts at the Capitol” premiering her own transcription of Rodrigo’s Concierto Aranjuez with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. She presents a newly-commissioned concerto by Brazilian composer Joao Luiz Rezende, exploring the sounds of Carnaval on the harp, and tours projects of her own creation, merging her own solo transcriptions alongside powerful collaborations: The Sacred in the Profane, exploring French Masterworks of the Belle Époque alongside the famed Calidore String Quartet; and Leyenda, celebrating Nuevo Latino Voices alongside Latin-Grammy winning percussionist/composer Samuel Torres and acclaimed clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski.

Kibbey was the 2022/23 Artist in Focus at the Schubert Club in Minneapolis, Minnesota, bringing three programs of her own creation to the city, to great critical acclaim. She crafted a baroque program with violinist Alexi Kenney, a French program with Calidore Quartet, and a program tracking music of the Islamic Golden Era alongside Iranian Singer Mahsa Vahdat and percussionist John Hadfield. Over the last few seasons, Kibbey toured her own adaptations of keyboard Concerti and Sonatas of J.S. Bach with the Dover Quartet, and in duo with mandolinist Avi Avital. She has commissioned new harp concerti from Vivian Fung and João Luiz; and in 2026, launches performances of the Clarice Assad Harp Concerto with multiple orchestras.

Kibbey appears frequently as soloist and chamber musician at festivals and series across the globe, including Schloss Elmau, Pelotas Festival, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart, La Jolla Music Society, International Festival d’Avesnois, Aspen, Bravo!Vail, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Big Ears Knoxville, Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton, Savannah Music Festival, The Phillips Collection, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Cliburn, and Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Columbus, Calgary Pro Musicis, Chattanooga’s String Theory, among others. Kibbey has appeared as concerto soloist with orchestras in  the United States, Europe, South America, and Middle East.